The recent agreement in Washington between Azerbaijan and Armenia, brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump, marks a defining development in the long-standing conflict between the two nations. One of the most critical aspects of the agreement is the launch of the long-proposed Zangezur Corridor. As the deal prescribes, the United States will fund and oversee the project, thus gaining rights over the corridor for 99 years.
The Zangezur Corridor is envisioned as a transport corridor enabling connection from mainland Azerbaijan through Armenia’s Syunik Province to Nakhchivan and enhancing interconnectedness between Türkiye, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, in addition to existing links via Georgia.
The launch of the Kars–Iğdır–Aralık–Dilucu Railway Line marks a decisive step in advancing the Zangezur Corridor, giving Türkiye and Azerbaijan a direct rail link for the first time. Backed by €2.4 billion in international financing, the 224-kilometre line will expand freight and passenger capacity, unlocking new trade flows across Eurasia.
For Türkiye, the project strengthens its role as the hub of the Middle Corridor, tying eastern Anatolia’s production zones more closely to global markets while boosting tourism access to its regions in the East and Southeast. For Azerbaijan, it provides seamless westward connectivity through Nakhchivan, reducing dependence on longer and more vulnerable transit routes.
Together, the two countries stand to consolidate their positions as central actors in Eurasian logistics, reinforcing both the Trans-Caspian and North–South corridors. Beyond its economic significance, the railway is also a geopolitical statement: a demonstration of Ankara and Baku’s shared vision to improve regional integration.
The reworked framework under U.S. auspices substantially reimagines the project as a geopolitical instrument. Washington’s influence on the corridor is not just an economic enterprise but a strategic move to keep at bay China’s Belt and Road Initiative, end Russia’s monopoly in the South Caucasus, and restrict Iran’s regional room for manoeuvre.
At its core, Washington’s sponsorship of the Zangezur Corridor is about more than steel tracks and fibre-optic cables. The deal grants the United States long-term rights over a narrow but vital 30-plus kilometre strip of Armenian land, transforming it into a multi-modal artery of trade, energy, and data.
Legally wrapped in Armenian sovereignty but politically bound to American oversight for nearly a century, the corridor gives Washington something it has long lacked in the South Caucasus: a durable foothold. This move shrewdly fills the vacuum left by the defunct OSCE Minsk Group, recasting mediation as infrastructure policy and positioning the U.S. to counterbalance both Russian and Iranian sway. U.S. officials have been quick to frame the project as a win-win for stability and prosperity, but the deeper calculation is clear: embedding America in the region’s connective tissue to box out rivals and secure leverage in the wider Eurasian chessboard.
For Armenia, the Zangezur Corridor is more than a strip of land — it is a strategic choice between lingering isolation and long-overdue reintegration into regional trade. The corridor offers Yerevan a rare opportunity to offset its geographic disadvantages by unlocking access to diversified markets and lowering the extreme costs of overland trade. Yet, this chance comes with a hard question: will Armenia treat Zangezur as a national lifeline or let it harden into another reminder of missed opportunities? Armenia’s economic fragility, dependence on remittances, and limited industrial base make decisive action all the more urgent. Success will require not only infrastructure upgrades and customs reforms but also political resolve to recalibrate ties with neighbours.
Meanwhile, Iran’s reactions to the agreement were prompt. Tehran authorities expressed concerns that the U.S.-supported corridor contravenes Iran’s sovereignty and its position in the region by bypassing Iranian territory in transit plans, and they reaffirmed their intense objection to U.S. involvement of any kind. Iranian decision-makers have for some time opposed any corridor agreements potentially reducing their control over East–West connectivity or endangering Iranian isolation from the Caucasus. The expectation of a 99-year U.S. domination fuelled Iranian anxieties, entrenching a strategic presence directly along its northern border. Statements from Iranian authorities stressed concern that the corridor may have purposes other than trade, possibly functioning as a geopolitical tool to contain Iran.
Tehran perceives the Zangezur Corridor as a geopolitical threat. By circumventing Iranian territory, the project diminishes Iran’s status as a transit hub, limits economic gain, and circumscribes its political and security influence within the region.
However, Tehran is victim of its own procrastination. For years, Türkiye actively attempted to include Iran in negotiations regarding the corridor to retain the project within a regional format, but Tehran repeatedly rebuffed and opposed these overtures. By closing off such offers, Iran curtailed its impact on the project and now finds itself relegated to the passenger seat as Armenia and Azerbaijan took the driver seat and proceeded ahead with Washington’s blessing. By doing so, Baku and Yerevan ignored Tehran’s long-standing aspiration to regional leadership.
Expanding on the Iranian stance, President Masoud Pezeshkian, before travelling to Armenia, described the possible involvement of American companies as “concerning,” highlighting Iran’s objection to any foreign military or security presence. Supreme Leader Khamenei’s senior adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, warned that the corridor could turn into a “graveyard for Trump’s mercenaries,” while the hardline Kayhan newspaper said the corridor “could turn into a channel for military and intelligence infiltration.”
Armenian authorities have sought to placate Iran and, during President Masoud Pezeshkian’s visit to Yerevan on 18 August, signed ten agreements aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that Armenia would respect all of Iran’s ‘red lines’ and assured that no U.S. troops would be deployed along the Iranian-Armenian border. Though these guarantees allay immediate concerns, Tehran’s longer-term strategic anxieties persist.
For Tehran, both the presence of conventional military forces and the political, infrastructural, and intelligence control implied by U.S. domination of the corridor are important concerns. Notably, the Zangezur Corridor takes material form at a time when Iran’s regional influence is waning on multiple fronts. The once dominant power in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq has seen its grasp slip due to changing domestic and geopolitical conditions. Its most recent war with Israel has further revealed Tehran’s vulnerabilities, draining much of its already depleted air defence infrastructure. Moreover, its regional allies, once a key source of leverage for projecting power, have grown increasingly unreliable as Iran’s financial and military wherewithal runs low. In light of this reduction in influence, the corridor championed by the U.S. aggravates Tehran’s strategic isolation.
From Tehran’s perspective, it is now under U.S. pressure from multiple fronts: to the north in the South Caucasus, to the south through the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, and to both the west and east through American-aligned partners. So, the Zangezur Corridor amounts to not just a transportation project but embodies a constricting threat. Where others see infrastructural development, Iran sees it as a direct strategic incursion.
In structural terms, the United States has effectively recast the South Caucasus as a fulcrum of Euro-Asian rivalry. Russia, distracted by war in Ukraine and beset by a declining regional influence, has had its historic preeminence eroded. And China, which has increasingly invested in connectivity projects reliant on east-west corridors, now finds itself confronted with the need to integrate its Belt and Road strategy, especially the Middle Corridor, into this new project. Iran, on the other hand, not only risks being circumvented as a transit point but also faces the potential of extended isolation from both economic integration and geopolitical significance.
What was once dismissed as a transport link has become a geopolitical fulcrum. With U.S. oversight extending across this sliver of Armenia, the South Caucasus has shifted from a marginal zone to a stage for great-power competition. The Zangezur Corridor now stands as a stark reminder: in the 21st century, infrastructure is no less powerful than military divisions in shaping the balance of power.
